


Break

by maryfic



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Divorce, Episode Tag, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Male Friendship, S3E14: Damaged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1813153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryfic/pseuds/maryfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can feel the line, the crack, ever widening. But he must hold the line. He must. It is his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break

It’s how Rossi finds him that worries him, his friend, this younger agent that somehow worked into David’s circle of one and became like a son to him. Hotch is staring out into space, and if he didn’t know the other man, he would say he’d slipped, broken, gone into a disassociate fugue state. But he does, and one simple word spreads alertness over the face. 

Readiness to do the job. 

"Aaron." He says it quietly, with no urgency, yet when Aaron’s eyes flick to his, there is a desperate longing for a case, something to take his mind away from what he has just done, what he has just lost, just given up with the cruel slash of pen and ink. 

But he has no comfort to offer, David knows. But he does have solace. Aged, dark, numbing solace. 

He guides Hotch from the office, into his own car. Silence fills the space until Rossi beats it back with quiet, wordless, sorrowful jazz. Upbeat is not the mood tonight, and he has enough respect for the grieving man beside him not to insult him so. 

The cabin blends into the landscape, its riches are hidden in the darkness, and inside the heavily secured walls and gate. Lights blaze on as they cross the entrance gate, and it closes them in just as quietly as it gave them access. 

Aaron follows Rossi into the house, lost in memories and blame and guilt. Rossi knows. He’s a man of failed marriages, too. And he knows what Hotch needs tonight is a clean slate, a precious blankness that will be filled up again tomorrow, but for now, for tonight, he craves peace and the safety that his best friend, the man who treats more like a father than his own ever did, will provide. 

It is Dave’s sure hands that strip him of his armor, the suit jacket, the tie, a few buttons on the pristine white shirt that Hotch keeps militarily creased. 

He pours his best scotch down Hotch’s throat, nearly a half a bottle and still the younger man doesn’t break, refuses to give in to this, this pain, this new normal of a life without Haley, without his son, and it is here, this is the line, the dam that he must keep from breaking, but he can’t. 

Not anymore. Dave and the fire and the scotch have done their jobs, and as Dave keeps pouring scotch into him, Hotch becomes blinded by everything around him and his face wets with tears, with breaking waves of anguish that he no longer has control over. 

Rossi is in control now, and that feels good, too good, but he cannot stop the tide now, and he’s telling him everything, everything he’s done, and not done, and Haley, and god, how angry he is with her, because it can’t be all his fault, it can’t, because if it is he’s no better than his father, and what he’s done to Haley is just as bad as beating her with his fists…

It just goes on, and on. Because if you bottle up your emotions, they become a Molotov, and Hotch has no idea how to handle such explosives. 

But David does. 

And in the morning, Hotch will never remember the break, but he will feel the healing scar. 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Have a prompt for me? Send here: http://maryfic.tumblr.com/ask


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